Every day a plus for transplant recipient

Ken Newton

Mar. 19, 2009 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- George Riley describes each day the same way. A plus, he says. Not like the letter grade, though that might apply. He means "plus" like a bonus, time awarded.

Three transplants, the most recent last month, gave him the plus days. Doctors discovered his childhood diabetes 57 years ago. Such a diagnosis in those days put any youngster on a path to lowered expectations.

His wife, Mary, remembers they married with George in the belief they would not see their fifth anniversary.

"He fibbed," she says, their 45th anniversary this year.

Blessings arrive every day, though a trio of them saved the man's life. His brother, Bernard, provided a kidney for the first transplant in 1994. The next year, doctors took a pancreas from a cadaver and placed it in Mr. Riley. Then, on Feb. 3, his daughter, Denise, donated one of her kidneys.

"Everybody says I'm the miracle, but I say no," Mr. Riley says. "It's Bernard and Denise."

He convalesces in his St. Joseph home, walking slowly to a chair in deference to a persistent equilibrium problem. "It just takes me a few more steps to get places," Mr. Riley says. By coincidence, it is World Kidney Day, a research foundation's observance of the organ.

Mr. Riley never fails in his appreciation.

Raised around Conception, Mo., George matched his grand appetite with a powerful thirst. But, at age 9, he started losing weight. Doctors thought it a childhood fluctuation, but blood tests offered a different story.

Their identification of diabetes in the boy forced him to take four shots a day until his pancreas transplant in 1995.

Mr. Riley's kidneys failed in 1988. A strict diet managed his condition until peritoneal dialysis became necessary. Doctors told the man he needed transplants of a kidney and pancreas. On a donor list, his wait would be three years at a minimum.

When his condition worsened and Mr. Riley learned he would not live three years, his brother stepped in.

George balked. "He struggled with taking it from him, what would happen to (Bernard's) health," Mrs. Riley said. "His brother is pretty stubborn."

The surgeries took place in Omaha's Clarkson Hospital with textbook procedure and results. The family came away with the expectation the donated kidney would serve five years. It lasted three times that long.

Mr. Riley had continued to work full-time during his health problems, though his office job at MNX, a trucking firm, headed out of St. Joseph after the company sold in 1994. With the second transplant, he worked for an accountant a few hours a day, to get out of the house and keep his skills sharp.

Denise Riley grew up around her father's medical condition, saw her parents handle "each situation with class and dignity." She even did a college paper on transplants, knowing one might some day be a part of her life. She called her Uncle Bernard the A Team and herself the B Team.

George's kidney began failing him again. Beginning in May 2007, he spent Mondays, Wednesday and Friday next to a hemodialysis machine, his blood filtered outside his body.

The Rileys have three children who live in Kansas City, another in Arizona. All would have donated a kidney, Mary Riley says, but Denise "just outyelled the rest of them."

Denise, 39, frames it as a matter of self-interest.

"My decision was a selfish one," she says. "I want Dad to be around for many more years and to have a better quality of life. The transplant was our best shot at making that happen."

The woman conceded the procedure was "not a day at the spa," with recovery time nearly a month, but it left a recovering father and no lingering health worries of her own. Besides, Denise jokes, her three small incisions "will allow me to embellish my war stories as needed."

George and Mary, devoted Catholics with a son in the priesthood, thank their doctors but praise a higher authority. "God has blessed us twice," Mrs. Riley says. "We've had our crises, but he's always carried us."

The family has also become vocal in the advocacy of organ donation. Sign the back of your driver's license, they say. Make donation wishes known to family members. The miracle resides in every person.

George Riley sits in the chair. The back of his hands appear dark, easily bruised from medicines he takes. He explains without complaint. The sun shines in the front yard beyond the picture window. A great day. And a plus.

Ken Newton can be reached at kenn@npgco.com.

Newstex ID: KRTB-0283-33190313